What to do about bone loss.
The simple argument that a loss in bone density =osteoporosis = fragility = fracture risk is, well, oversimplified. But, once researchers could start measuring bone density and drug companies started making drugs that increased density, the marketing departments took over. Do you want to be the attractive woman at the ballet bar or the old lady with the Dowagers hump? Again, not so simple as popping a bisphosphanate. Not much talk about long term use, side effect and what the term osteopenia really means.
Throw serotonin into the mix and it gets even more confusing. While serotonin in the brain is known as a target for antidepressant, the presence of the chemical in the gut has been linked to bone loss.
So, here comes the unlinking.
The New York Times today reports on conflicting studies about the impact of "gut serotonin on bone loss.
The Columbia (University) group reported in The Journal of Bone and Mineral Research that osteoporosis could be prevented in mice with a drug that blocks production of gut serotonin; the Harvard group said in a paper in Nature Medicine that gut serotonin appeared to have no effect on bone.
Researchers watching from the outside admit that they are perplexed.
“Both labs are credible,” said Dr. Sundeep Khosla, an osteoporosis researcher and professor at the Mayo Clinic. "And both are convincing papers in their own right.
“But it makes you wonder,” he added. “If modest differences in models have such a huge impact, what’s the biological interpretation?”